January 20, 2013 "BBC" -- After many hours of waiting
in the pitch black and freezing cold for the bakery to open,
the crush of men at the head of the queue started drumming
on the doors in frustration.

An
activist was explaining to me how the bread shortage in
rebel-held parts of Aleppo was another crime to be heaped on
the head of Bashar al-Assad.

He was
waved away by a stout matron in a hijab and long black coat.

"Don't
blame Bashar. What's happening to us is of our own making,"
she said as, behind her, Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters
struggled to keep order.

It is
widely believed in Aleppo that the bread shortage was caused
by the FSA stealing flour to sell elsewhere.

An FSA
officer confirmed as much when I asked him if this had been
done by individual fighters or was ordered by commanders to
fund their operations.

"Both," he said, "including my own brigade." He added,
ruefully: "We are all thieves."

It was
a joke, and his men erupted in laughter, but he meant it
seriously, too.

'Syrian mujahideen'

The
beneficiaries of this are the hardline Islamists, especially
Jabhat al-Nusra, or the Nusra Front.

They
have now taken over distribution of flour to bakeries in
rebel-held areas of Aleppo.

None
of the FSA brigades - all accusing each other of looting -
trusted anyone else, the officer told me.

The
Nusra Front is outside the FSA and has a reputation for
discipline and honesty. It is also a jihadi group behind
most of the suicide bombings in Syria and as such is on a US
blacklist of terrorist organisations.

It announced itself to
the world one year ago in an internet video that claimed
several recent car bombings.

A
masked man on the video declared: "We are Syrian mujahedeen,
back from various jihad fronts to restore God's rule on the
Earth and avenge the Syrians' violated honour and spilled
blood."

He
went on: "Every free and noble man must take up arms, even
if he has to sell his furniture to do so… Oh people of
manliness! Jabhat al-Nusra has taken upon itself to be the
Muslim nation's weapon in this land."

The
Nusra Front is a feared and a secretive organisation but
after long negotiation we were able to speak to an emir, or
senior commander.

As you
might expect, the emir, Abu Lokman, set out a vision of
Syria as an Islamic state ruled under Sharia.

This
was not a fight for democracy.

"In
the name of God, praise is to God and peace upon our Prophet
Muhammad," he began, "the people in Syria are religious by
nature."

"They
like Islam. People here are fed up with socialist and
secular regimes. They are all looking forward to an Islamic
state. It is impossible there could be anything else in
Syria."

Teaspoon of
explosives

Abu
Lokman was in his thirties and had been a student before
being arrested by the regime in 2008.

He was
active on jihadi internet forums and joined Jabhat al-Nusra
while it was still a secret organisation, six months before
the video announcing its existence.

He
wore a ski-mask for our interview, a necessary precaution
against the regime's spies, he explained.

Outside his office were bearded fighters, including two in
Yemeni dress, carrying traditional curved knives along with
their Kalashnikovs and wearing the short dish-dasha of the
pious.

A bag
of explosives was delivered, a sample sent by a dealer. It
was white powder - probably ground-up fertiliser and diesel.
It was tested by setting a teaspoonful on fire. It burned
very nicely.

I
asked: How do you justify suicide bombings which might kill
civilians?

"It's
not just us who use suicide bombings; many other factions of
the FSA do.

"The
regime plants car bombs among civilians and accuses us of
doing it to destroy our reputation... God forbid we take any
civilian lives, whether Muslims or non-Muslims, Christians
or others."

The
United States calls you a terrorist group, I said.

"The
West is afraid of our long beards - even though the Jews
grow their beards, too.

"Muslims are portrayed in the West as savages. The West is
conspiring against us

"When
the US placed us on their list of terrorists, it did us no
harm, it elevated our reputation. The Syrian people hate the
American government. Thanks be to God, we consider this a
medal of honour."

Are
you al-Qaeda, I asked.

"We
both use the same language, the same terminology as we are
all Arabic speakers. But there is no connection [between
Jabhat al-Nusra and al-Qaeda] - we are Syrians."

What
if the US and others wanted to bomb the regime?

"We
are not campaigning for or against this. Of course, if they
destroy the regime's military posts, that is in our favour.
But we don't want an intervention because we are the people
of this country and we are able to defend our own country."

'Non-sectarian'

This
was the first broadcast interview by a member of Jabhat al-Nusra's
leadership.

The
emir was being cautious.

This
was a Syrian fight, not part of a wider jihad. They had no
hostile intent to any other states - as long as they did not
support the regime.

There
would be no sectarian attacks against Syria's minorities.
Christians, especially, had nothing to fear.

"We
have many fatwas telling us not to exploit the Christians'
blood and possessions. Christ is our prophet too - how much
do you love Christ? I love him more than you do."

When
not attending to military matters, the emir dealt with a
variety of requests.

A
trail of supplicants came and went.

It was
clear how important the group had become to daily life here.

A man
had run out of cooking gas. Another complained his sons
would not support him in his old age.

A
widow begged for help in getting her inheritance from her
dead husband's family. A man asked for help in freeing his
cousin, arrested by an FSA brigade.

The
man detained was a tribal elder accused of having had a
"loyalty tent", where before the revolution people would
chat under a framed picture of the president.

His
family said they had been told the price of his release
would be several million Syrian pounds (tens of thousands of
UK pounds or US dollars).

We
heard many such stories of people arrested - kidnapped might
be a better term - based on flimsy claims of a connection to
the regime.

Demands for money often followed. Raising a voice in protest
could invite the deadly allegation of being a Shabiha, a
member of the brutal regime militia.

Sharia court

The
atmosphere in Aleppo has a touch of Paris in 1944: the
mistrust and the score settling, the finger-pointing at
collaborators, real or imagined.

In our
block of flats, if people spot a car full of FSA fighters
coming to arrest someone, they swarm onto the street to try
to stop them.

We
heard about a man whose new car was seized at an FSA
checkpoint.

He
complained to the Nusra Front. The FSA brigade concerned
brought witnesses who swore he was a Shabiha and he was
thrown into jail.

He was
later freed - and his car returned - after the Nusra Front
assigned the case to Aleppo's new Sharia court.

The
Sharia court is being set up by the Nusra Front along with
three of the more Islamist brigades of the FSA.

It is
supposed to be an alternative to the secular justice system
formerly run by the Syrian state and to operate in parallel
with it.

But
its influence can already be felt widely.

Difficult problems, which cannot otherwise be solved, are
sent over to the court.

An FSA
official had been too nervous to grant us a permit to film
at the bakery, for instance.

"Often
people in bread queues start chanting slogans against the
FSA," he'd said.

He
directed us instead to the Sharia court, which provided the
necessary piece of paper.

All of
this is happening as the battle for Aleppo continues.

The
day after we left, an air strike hit a block of flats in the
area where we had been staying, leaving some 26 people
buried under the rubble.

But
the war seems more distant, the bombing and shelling an
occasional interruption rather than a constant thump,
gripping the stomach in a permanent spasm of fear.

The
regime's forces are bottled up in a few bases; the areas of
"liberated" territory expanding.

Taste of ashes

The
FSA always suspected that Aleppo's heart was never really in
the revolution.

Now
the shopkeepers, farmers and small businessmen of the
countryside are in charge in large parts of the city.

They
are discovering that victory has a taste of ashes.

"Free
Aleppo" has eight-hour bread queues, power cuts, children
scavenging for rubbish to burn and trees in the parks all
cut down for firewood.

Some
people here - many in fact - still support the FSA, but amid
the chaos and shortages, and the problems of the FSA's own
making, others are turning to hardline groups such as the
Nusra Front, attracted by their reputation for discipline
and honesty, bravery and piety.

They
will undoubtedly have a big say in Syria's future.

What
does this mean for Western governments debating whether to
intervene?

Taking
tea in a neighbour's shop, I met a 30-year-old Nusra Front
fighter called Abdullah.

"The
Nusra Front is the son of al-Qaeda," he told me.

"We
are this close," he went on, rubbing his two index fingers
together.

He had
worked in a woman's clothes shop before the revolution. And
after the revolution?

"No
more dresses," he said. He would take the jihad to Somalia,
Mali, Jordan, Iraq, "wherever there are Muslims".

Western governments, then, face a dilemma.

If
arms are allowed to reach the Syrian rebels, they could end
up in the hands of radical Islamists.

But if
moderates in the uprising are not identified and supported,
power will flow to the best organised and most disciplined
fighters. At the moment, those are the jihadists.

We ask readers to play a proactive role and click
the "Report link [at the base of each comment] when
in your opinion, comments cross the line and become
purely offensive, racist or disrespectful to others.

In accordance
with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material
is distributed without profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational
purposes. Information Clearing House has no
affiliation whatsoever with the originator of
this article nor is Information ClearingHouse
endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)